Lombardi’s Way - A column from the 24×7 founder that focuses on the Ravens, the NFL, Baltimore, the world of sports or life’s inspirations.

Word on The Street - In the spirit of the CBS Sports Minute with Boomer Esiason, RSR brings you Word on The Street, a 90 second (or less) podcast on topics exclusively relating to the Baltimore Ravens.

Ravens Links - We’ll give you the best stories about the Ravens from around the web three times per week.

The Fanimal - If you are an animal about the Baltimore Ravens, then you are a Fanimal! Follow the Russell Street Report blog Fanimal Crackers!

The Edgar Awards - The Edgar Awards will range from the Maryland county that is home to the best Ravens fans to the best Ravens podcast; from the best collection of displaced fans to the best local craft brews that should be part of your next tailgating party.

The Road to RSR - Our writers explains their journeys as fans and how they came to write for our little corner of sports media.

The above 55 players are under contract for a total Rule of 51 Salary Cap commitment (which includes dead money from players no longer on the team) of $172,571,442. (See: 2019 Salary Cap Spreadsheet).

Initial projections indicate that the 2019 Salary Cap is expected to see roughly the same increase in the Cap as in recent years, jumping the Cap up to somewhere between $187-191M (up from this year’s $177.2M Cap). These initial projections by the NFL Management Council have historically been on the lower end, so the Cap may well be on the high end of that range. For the purposes of this projection, though, we will use the middle of that range – $189M – for our projection and hope that this will provide the lower end of the Ravens Cap prospects.

So, using the figure of $189M for the estimated Cap, the Ravens will initially have around $16.429M in Cap space, accounting for the 55 players presently under contract.

This will be the basis for early reports on the status of the Ravens’ Salary Cap, and sounds great, but it’s important to keep in mind that this number is based on just the 55 players that are presently under contract and nowhere near representative of the team’s Cap with a full roster and with the other factors that will be explained below.

So, between now and Wednesday, March 13th at 4:00 p.m., when the new league year and free agency begins, the Ravens will definitely have some work to do.

WR Janarion Grant returns a kick

PRACTICE SQUAD FREE AGENTS (FAs)

The Ravens usually re-sign most of their Practice Squad players to “Future” contracts for the following year. So far this year, they have already done so with 8 of the former Practice Squad players. WR Tim White signed with the NY Jets instead and WR Janarion Grant and OT Jake Rodgers still remain unsigned.

2018 SALARY CAP CARRYOVER

Under the terms of the CBA, teams are now allowed to carry over excess Salary Cap space from one year to the next. The Ravens finished the 2018 season with $4,504,955 available Cap space and have carried that amount over into 2019. This will increase the Ravens available 2019 Cap space by that amount.

OTHER SALARY CAP ADJUSTMENTS

WORKOUT BONUS ADJUSTMENT: All teams will have an adjustment of $676,800 added to their Cap for team workout bonuses. This number is essentially the total amount of CBA mandated workout bonuses that could be earned by the players in the offseason. This amount is a debit from the Cap. Once training camp begins, this debit will be removed and the actual amount of workout bonuses earned by the players will be added onto the Cap.

INCENTIVE ADJUSTMENTS: The Ravens’ 2019 Cap will also see adjustments for incentives earned that didn’t count against the 2018 Cap (“Not Likely To Be Earned” incentives) that were actually earned and incentives that did count against the 2018 Cap (“Likely To Be Earned” incentives) but weren’t earned.

Over the last few years, the Ravens have often used NLTBE incentives as a way of lessening the present year’s Cap number, especially in years with tighter Caps.

The incentives contained in player contracts are usually not widely reported, so the total amount of these incentive adjustments is usually not disclosed until the beginning of the 2019 league year in March.

Over the past five years, the Ravens have averaged closed to $4M in negative adjustments, due mostly to NLTBE incentives that were earned in the prior year. At present, it is known that Willie Snead ($2.2M), Eric Weddle ($1M) and Anthony Levine ($100K) earned NLTBE incentives in 2018, which will count as negative adjustments against the 2019 Cap, so they may end up exceeding that $4M average this year.

PROVEN PERFORMANCE ESCALATOR: PROVEN PERFORMANCE ESCALATOR: The 2011 CBA mandated 4-year contracts for all draft picks, which eliminated a player’s chance to receive the higher paying RFA tender in their 4th year. To offset this, the new CBA implemented the Proven Performance Escalator (PPE), which allows lower draft picks (3rd through 7th rounds) to receive an upgrade salary that is equivalent to the low RFA tender if the player performed well over the 1st 3 years of his contract. The player’s “performance” is measured by playing time, so the escalator is earned if the player either (1) plays in 35% of offensive or defensive snaps in 2 of the player’s first 3 seasons or (2) plays in 35% of the cumulative snaps over his first 3 seasons.

The Ravens currently have 7 players drafted in 2016 who are still playing under the terms of their rookie contracts – CB Tavon Young, WR Chris Moore, G Alex Lewis, DT Willie Henry, RB Kenneth Dixon, OLB Matt Judon and CB Maurice Canady.

Of those players, only Young, Lewis and Judon earned the PPE and, as such, they will see their base salary jump from $720K to approximately $2.023M (if the Salary Cap is set at $189M). Chris Moore missed out on earning the PPE by only four offensive snaps and Willie Henry would most likely have earned the PPE if he hadn’t spent most of the year on Injured Reserve. Do keep in mind, though, that the PPE is not guaranteed, so if the player is released or traded, the PPE will have zero effect on the team’s Salary Cap.

EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS FREE AGENTS (ERFAs)

These players must be tendered contracts of the league minimum, based on the player’s length of service in the league ($645K, $570K or $495K). Once tendered, these players are fully under the team’s control and are not free to negotiate with other teams.

The Ravens have 6 players who are Exclusive Rights Free Agents (ERFAs):

In past years, because of the minimal cost and minimal impact on the Salary Cap, the Ravens usually tendered all of their ERFAs.

RESTRICTED FREE AGENTS (RFAs)

These are players whose contracts have expired and who have 3 years of accrued service time. The team must tender the player with an RFA offer. Once tendered, another team can sign the player to a RFA offer sheet, but the Ravens then have 7 days to match that offer sheet and retain the player under the terms of that offer sheet. If the Ravens were to choose not to match the offer sheet, they would then receive compensation based on the level of RFA tender made to the player.

* 1st Round Tender: allows the team to receive compensation of a 1st round – $4.402M (est)
* 2nd Round Tender: allows the team to receive compensation of 2nd round pick – $3.092M (est)
* Low Tender: allows the team to receive compensation of a draft pick equal to the round in which the player was originally drafted or the Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for an undrafted player – $2.023M (est)

The above Tender amounts just estimates at this point. Under the terms of the CBA, the RFA Tender amounts increase at the same rate as the overall Salary Cap, with the minimum increase being 5%. An increase in the Salary Cap from $177.2M to $188M would represent an 6.09% increase in the Cap, so the above estimates for the RFA tenders are based on that 6.09% increase.

Photo Credit: Patrick Smith, Getty Images

The Ravens have 4 players who are pending Restricted Free Agents (RFAs), with their draft pick compensation:

It is a certainty that the Ravens use RFA tenders on Onwuasor and Pierce. As undrafted free agents coming out of college, both will likely receive the 2nd round tender; otherwise the Ravens would only have the right to match, with no draft compensation if they chose not to.
.
As they have at times in the past, it seems likely that they do not tender Jean-Baptiste, but may perhaps try and sign him to a lesser contract. Given his drop off in product, Collins may also be a non-tender and re-sign candidate, otherwise he will likely receive the low tender.

FLACCO TRADE

The trade of QB Joe Flacco will not be official until after 4:00 on Wednesday, March 13th. Once it becomes official, Flacco’s Cap number of $26.5M will be reduced down to $16M, which will remain on the Cap as dead money. The end result of Flacco’s release will be a $10.5M in Cap savings for the Ravens.

PROJECTED ADJUSTED TEAM CAP AND RULE OF 51 SALARY CAP COMMITMENT

Based on all of the above, it is estimated that the Ravens will have an Adjusted Team Salary Cap of $188.828M. The team’s Adjusted Cap consists of the projected league-wide Salary Cap of $189M, plus the carryover of the 2018 excess Cap space of $4.505M, less adjustments for workout bonuses ($676,800) and the incentives adjustment (est. to be $4M).

Presently, the Ravens have 55 players under contract, but assuming they tender all of their RFAs (except Jean-Baptiste) and ERFAs, they will eventually have 63 players under contract or tendered.

During the offseason, though, when roster can balloon to up to 90 players, only the highest 51 Salary Cap numbers (and all 2019 bonus prorations and all dead money from released players) are counted for Salary Cap purposes. This is called the “Rule of 51”.

As such, the Ravens’ estimated Rule of 51 number – including the above factors (including the PPE) and the projected ERFA and RFA tenders – would be a Cap commitment of approximately $169.490M. See the “2019 Projected Cap” tab here.

When compared with the team’s Adjusted Cap of $188.828M, this would leave the Ravens projected to just under $19.338M under the Salary Cap.

Again, this estimate is a worst-case scenario and done before the Ravens make any other roster moves that will create Salary Cap space. But, it is a starting point and – much like past years – underscores that the team has some work to do to create the Cap space necessary to address their offseason needs.

UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENTS (UFAs)

The following 11 players are Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs) and will be free to sign with other teams if they haven’t re-signed with the Ravens before Free Agency begins on March 13th at 4:00 p.m.:

At this time, the main question here is whether the Ravens will use the Franchise Tag on LB CJ Mosley. It is anticipated that the franchise tag for Linebackers will be over $15M range. As much as they might like to retain Mosley, there’s a pretty good chance that that may be too rich for the Ravens and Mosley. As such, if they want to retain Mosley, they will need to re-sign him prior to March 13th. That said, he won’t be cheap.

2019 DRAFT PICKS

The Ravens are expected to have 8 draft picks in the 2019 draft. They presently have five (5) of their own round picks (1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th), after having traded their 2nd round pick in the 2018 draft day trade for QB Lamar Jackson and their 7th round pick to Jacksonville in 2017 for Guard Luke Bowanko. The Ravens now hold Denver’s 4th round pick (Flacco trade) and Tennessee’s 6th round pick (Kamalei Correa) and are also expected to receive a 3rd or 4th round Compensatory pick for the 2018 loss of Center Ryan Jensen.

It is also conceivable that the Ravens could pick up an additional draft pick or two if they decide to trade other veterans like Jimmy Smith and Eric Weddle.

Based on their present draft position, the Ravens will likely have a rookie Cap of somewhere between $6-7M depending on their final record. While that number won’t factor into their initial Cap calculations, it is something that the team will budget for as they otherwise build their roster.

EXTENSION/RELEASE/RESTRUCTURE

Based on the above, it’s pretty clear that the Ravens are going to have to create additional Salary Cap space in order to be able to re-sign players and/or sign other players to the roster. There are three primary ways of creating additional Salary Cap space – (1) signing players to contract extensions to lessen their 2019 Cap number, (2) releasing/trading players and/or (3) restructuring of contracts.

EXTENSION: An extension is generally used when a player has a large base salary and is in the later years of his contract. An extension will allow the team to turn much of that large base salary (and often, more) into a Signing Bonus to go along with new years added to the contract. The essentially works to reduce the player’s present Cap number. Of course, it takes two to tango and teams and players often don’t see eye to eye on value.

The Ravens really don’t have any ideal extension candidate that will create much in the way of Salary Cap space, but PK Justin Tucker is headed into the last year of his contract in 2019 and it would probably to wise to lock him up for 2020 and beyond. GM Eric DeCosta also recently mentioned locking up some of the team’s younger players before they reach free agency. Extensions for those players will not create any additional Cap space and will actually use up available Cap space, but locking up players like LB Matthew Judon, OT Ronnie Stanley, LB Patrick Onwuasor, DT Michael Pierce and/or CB Tavon Young may be a wise idea and ultimately prove to be a bargain down the road.

RELEASE/TRADE:

The below chart lays out the Salary Cap implications of the release or trade (both are treated the same for Cap purposes) of some Ravens players:

As the above chart shows, there are different implications to releasing a player prior to June 1 and releasing the player after June 1. Releasing the player before June 1 allows the player to be fully cleared off the books immediately, by taking the enter hit of dead money (the acceleration of bonus money from signing bonuses) in the present year. This generally makes for a smaller amount of Cap savings, but also keeps the release from having any Cap implications in the following season. Releasing a player after June 1 (or using a June 1 designation on a release prior to June 1), allows for a more sizeable Cap savings, but pushing dead money onto the following year’s Cap. More importantly, though, any Cap savings realized from a post-June 1 release (or a June 1 designation release) is not available until after June 1, so there’s no benefit to such a release in March, at the time when the money is generally needed to sign or re-sign players to build your roster.

The Ravens have historically shied away from releasing players post-June 1. In the past, they have at most used just one post-June 1 release, but it can be a useful tool when a team has a tight Salary Cap.

Needless to say, the Ravens have more than a few candidates for trade or release that can help create a sizeable amount of much-needed Cap space.

SMITH: Given Smith’s age (31 when next season starts), his troubled injury and suspension history, and the large amount of Cap savings from his release, Smith is a prime candidate to be cut. While Smith is still a solid player, it seems unlikely that the Ravens are going to pay him $9.5M in cash (his base salary). There is also the possibility the Ravens and Smith can agree to a pay cut to keep Smith around for another year, but at a lesser salary. If that fails, the Ravens could also look to trade Smith, as they did with Anquan Boldin in 2013 and Haloti Ngata in 2015.

CRABTREE: Crabtree is another prime candidate to be released. He certainly didn’t live up to the hype created by his arrival and his troubled history of drops continued in his first season as a Raven. While you’d prefer to have a bit better ratio of Cap savings to dead money, releasing Crabtree would save $4.667M. While the Ravens have rarely used a post-June 1 release, Crabtree could be a candidate this year, depending on what other moves the Ravens make to create Cap space in March. This would create a bit more Cap savings for 2019 and split the dead money between 2019 and 2020 ($2.334M each year).

Photo Credit: Baltimore Ravens

WEDDLE: Based on his play on the field, Weddle would also seen like a prime candidate for release, especially given the $7.5M in Cap savings. However, Weddle’s leadership in the secondary – and the overall defense, for that matter – may just be enough to convince the Ravens of the need for his return. Like Jimmy Smith, Weddle could also be approached about a taking pay cut, but his most recent statements may be an indication that the parties aren’t exactly seeing eye-in-eye on Weddle’s value.

SNEAD: Snead seems to be the veteran WR who is most likely to return, but due to the $2.2M increase in his Cap number based on him earning 2018 incentives (thus increasing his Cap number by $2.2M since his 2019 incentives are now treated as Likely To Be Earned incentives), the higher Cap number ($7.2M) may make him more vulnerable to being cut.

WILLIAMS: Given that the Ravens have restructured his deal twice over the 1st two (2) years of his new contract, the cost to release Williams is simply too high. This is the perfect example of the consequence of restructuring contracts.

JEFFERSON: Jefferson is pretty much in the same boat as Williams, although there is at least some Cap savings if the Ravens decided to release him.

CARR: Heading into the season, Carr being released this offseason seemed like a foregone conclusion. Then Smith got suspended and Carr stepped in admirably. So, after putting in a very solid season, it seems likely that Carr will return.

RESTRUCTURE: The main drawbacks of constantly restructuring contracts is that it often becomes a vicious cycle that causes the team to continue and continue to restructure deals year after year.

In recent years, the Ravens have been stuck in this cycle and have created some bloated Cap numbers (Williams, Jefferson) that aren’t easy to get away from.

That said, if the Ravens make some of the above cuts, there should be no need to restructure any contracts this year.

OUTLOOK

Once again, the Ravens face another offseason with a lot of work to do. This year, though, they appear to have a lot of players who they may be ready to move on from and the release or trade of those players will create ample Salary Cap space for the team.

For example, the release or trade of CB Jimmy Smith and WR Michael Crabtree would clear $13.167M in Cap space. Add in Weddle’s $7.5M and that number goes up to $20.667M. It may not be those players in particular, but the Ravens clearly have more flexibility than the have in the past.

The Salary Cap is a puzzle, and the Ravens’ Front Office will likely use a combination of the above maneuvers to create the Cap space necessary to address the team’s pressing roster issues.

This year, though, it appears that, for the first time is many years, the Ravens will have a lot more Cap flexibility to address their needs and will likely have ample Cap space when free agency begins in mid-March.

As always, there’s never a dull moment and the months of March and April will once again be an interesting time for the Ravens.

Share This

About Brian McFarland

Known on Ravens Message Boards as "B-more Ravor", Brian is a life-long Baltimorean and an avid fan of the Ravens and all Baltimore sports. A PSL holder since 1998, Brian has garnered a reputation as a cap-guru because of his strange (actually warped) desire to wade through the intricacies of the NFL's salary cap and actually make sense of it for those of us who view it as inviting as IRS Tax Code.
Brian, who hails from Catonsville, MD and still resides there, is married and has two children. More from Brian McFarland

Sidebar 300×250

Lombardi’s Way - A column from the 24×7 founder that focuses on the Ravens, the NFL, Baltimore, the world of sports or life’s inspirations.

Word on The Street - In the spirit of the CBS Sports Minute with Boomer Esiason, RSR brings you Word on The Street, a 90 second (or less) podcast on topics exclusively relating to the Baltimore Ravens.

Ravens Links - We’ll give you the best stories about the Ravens from around the web three times per week.

The Fanimal - If you are an animal about the Baltimore Ravens, then you are a Fanimal! Follow the Russell Street Report blog Fanimal Crackers!

The Edgar Awards - The Edgar Awards will range from the Maryland county that is home to the best Ravens fans to the best Ravens podcast; from the best collection of displaced fans to the best local craft brews that should be part of your next tailgating party.

The Road to RSR - Our writers explains their journeys as fans and how they came to write for our little corner of sports media.